Finding Loss
by Ellenka
Summary: "Her salvation is my damnation and there's nothing I can do about it." Angsty little piece set after Peeta's rescue in MJ, from Gale's POV.


**Disclaimer:** I own neither the characters and settings from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins nor the quoted song lyrics by Daniel Lloyd Davey.

**A/N:** Scary news: I just wrote something pretty much canon-compliant.

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><p><strong>Finding Loss<strong>

_Wind amidst the flame  
>I gazed out<br>Tapped into the fog and shared her pain  
>when in her mind she sought his leave<br>and begged forgiveness…_

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><p>"<em>Gale!<em>"

_She_ screams my name.

The bare emotion in her voice sends a thrill through my body. Powerful even despite the haze of pain I'd been struggling against since the adrenaline rush subsided. But before I can see the her expression, and hope to catch a glimpse of _something_ that could help me so much more than whatever stupid drug I may get here, a nurse slams the door in her face.

Catnip makes to attempt to get in.

I grit my teeth even as the needle with local anesthetic somehow pierces through the raw ache in my shoulder.

Somewhere beyond the door Katniss probably sets off to reunite with _him_.

It shouldn't even rankle. _That's what I fought for this time, isn't it?_

Perhaps the last bit of help she'll accept from me.

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><p>Katniss has been a ghost of herself ever since her rescue from the Arena, only the pearl <em>he<em> had given her there seemed to hold her in this world, to retain any sort of meaning for her.

She was beyond consolation, so I at least helped to save her poor tortured bread-boy for her. I believed, I hoped that even seeing her with him would hurt less than the cruel prickling of the soul-shards she'd shattered into in his absence.

Hell, if I only knew how it would turn out…

Snippets of the terrible truth gradually penetrate through the pain and painkillers that alternately fog my brain. It takes me a while to realize that they are _not_ a nightmare.

He's been brainwashed and programmed to destroy her.

He tried to strangle her.

She's been saved at the last second.

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><p>When I finally escape from my hospital bed and sneak to her, I see that his task of destroying her has been pretty much accomplished. The shards are dust and ashes now.<p>

She's not asleep, but her inert eyes don't acknowledge me at all, and I'm lost and at loss, perhaps only slightly less than she is. So I just ghost my fingers over her neck, careful not to hurt her more, wishing my touch could heal her. But of course it doesn't. The soft kiss I plant between her eyes doesn't either and I know well enough I shouldn't have dreamed that it could.

How ridiculous would that be?

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><p>Eventually, Katniss is released from the hospital to despair, so much deeper than before.<p>

As far as she is concerned, it was all worse than in vain.

_He_'s back, but gone for good and he'd unwittingly tried to kill her, but she still retains his last gift, clutching it like a vain belief. Now the pearl must be the only pure thing she has left of him, and she clings to it as if it were here lifeline, a pass to a place I can't comprehend, much less follow her to.

I suspect she wouldn't want me there anyway.

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><p>When she leaves for District Two, stubbornly refusing my offer to accompany her and still clutching that sacred-damned pearl in her pocket, I know that the memory and significance she attributes to it far surpass anything I could ever give her.<p>

Anything she'd want from me.

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><p>Even when I find and embrace her in the foreign woods surrounding Two, hopelessly try to brush the faded stigmata of <em>his<em> nails from her neck, and then kiss her lips like I've always needed to, I know I'm no longer holding anything more than her body. The idea hurts, perhaps almost as much as the fact that she now has only Peeta's pearl to hold onto hurts Katniss.

We are united by deepest loss once again, and yet divided more than ever, because we can no longer truly help each other. I still believe _she_ could save _me_, if she'd only let me hold onto her, but that possibility is far gone.

Now there's hardly any place left for me between and around Katniss and her mad and for all intents and purposes dead savior. Her soul still needs him just like her body needed the bread he'd saved her with when she was a starving child.

So I pull away first, to save both her and myself from tarnishing whatever remained of _us_ by mindless contact she'd only regret when she comes to her senses.

Of course it comes across wrong.

No matter what I do, _he_'s always been the first to save her, whether alive or dead or mad or anything in between.

He was the first, and she obviously needs him to be the last as well.

She doesn't say his name aloud, but when I ask her what's on her mind, her bewildered gaze seems to inquire why I am not… and confirm that I can never be…

… _him_...

... the at-the-first glance pallid incompetent who'd somehow delivered Katniss from the evil of the Games and maybe even started this fiery rebirth of Panem by declaring love for a Capitol-designated enemy.

Hell, he'd even saved me once.

_Peeta_.

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><p>And now with the <em>change<em> I'd dreamed of all my life finally _happening_, I can't even really wish for that ridiculous name to have stayed in the reaping bowl along with Prim's.

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><p><strong>AN no 2:**

Mmmkay, I don't know where this came from… canon-compliance is decidedly NOT how I roll… but please review and tell me what you think anyway. Reviews make me happy and happiness makes me more likely to post some nice fanservice to make us all feel better, Gale included.


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